AsiaDry Cargo

Authorities raid Polaris Shipping headquarters

Authorities have raided the Seoul and Busan offices of under fire Polaris Shipping as part of investigations into the sinking of the Stellar Daisy, an elderly converted ore carrier that went down in the South Atlantic at the end of March with the loss of 22 lives.

Only two men survived the sinking. Since then Polaris has been hit by a string of other incidents across a number of other ships in its fleet, sparking a fleet-wide inspection.

Authorities raided the two offices yesterday morning and took away all documents relating to the Stellar Daisy, including communication transcripts between the ship and its shore superintendents, the ship’s navigation log, its repair record and its ship inspection history.

Polaris has reached a compensation package with most of the families connected to the Stellar Daisy crew. Another ore carrier, Stellar Queen, remains off Brazil for nearly four weeks with repair work ongoing to fix some cracks that have emerged on its hull.

Polaris’s earlier plans to push an IPO as early as this July now appear in tatters.

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.

Comments

  1. Seriously?

    What kind of ‘authorities’ that are seriously investigating this tragedy with an aim on an accurate, factual, detailed resolution would wait nearly a month after the event, to go into the offices and “raid” everyone’s desks and file cabinets and computers in an effort to DISCOVER EVIDENCE?????

    This dog and pony show is merely to check the box of “things we did to placate the families concerned and their attorneys”

    This almost insults my intelligence. As I’ve said before, no party involved is really interested in dredging up what they already likely know and making a public admission. Let this pass, make some minor safety recommendations of little meaning, relevance, or substance, and move on chaps!

    Let’s get back to the business at hand of making money.

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